


Incoendium

by lady_wordsmith



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Disfigured Reader, Disfigurement, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, Protective Daryl Dixon, Reader-Insert, Romance, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Violence Against Walkers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 02:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11477079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: incoendium: ardor, passion, appreciation, wildfire.Set between seasons 2 and 3. Daryl finds you in the woods and brings you to the others when he realizes you're all alone. He becomes confused at what he feels for you, only to have a nasty encounter with a walker bring everything to the forefront.Disfigured since childhood, you figure intelligence and luck are the only things you've got. Then you meet Daryl Dixon and you don't even realize you're falling for him until it's already happened.





	Incoendium

The first time you meet people, you usually expect one of two reactions: an uncomfortably long stare at the left side of your face or an inability to meet your eyes. You could deal with either of those, having had a decade and change of practice.

When you first meet Daryl, though, he throws you off balance. It was during that harsh winter of scavenging, after the fall of Hershel’s farm for Daryl and his group. You had been alone for months, after your group had elected to abandon you when you were feverish and dehydrated, surely a day or so from death at that point. It had only been luck that saved you, and that luck and what wits you possessed that kept you surviving.

You meet Daryl in a thick brush of woods. The sun peeks thorough tall trees that rise out of the earth and brush the sky, warming you briefly. You’re looking through dead leaves and piles of pine needles caught in lush moss clumps, searching for edible roots. The forest has been kind to you, with the mushrooms you found growing on a rotting log nearby, and the white willow bark you’ve stored in your pack for later medicinal use. You hear a grassy rustle followed by a _snap_ , and still. It doesn’t sound like a deer, and you reach quickly for your belt in preparation for facing down one of those braindead nasties when a voice calls to you.

“Turn around. Slow.”

You nod, standing and raising your hands in a gesture of surrender as you turn to face the first human you’ve seen in months. The first thing your eye meets is the crossbow. You had a Bowie knife someone in your group had left behind tucked into your belt, but you knew it was probably no match for crossbow guy. You raise your face to him, and you’re still not sure if the gesture is one of defiance or submission. You know you expect him to flinch. Everyone did, the first time they took a look. The skin on the left side of your face is the stuff of nightmares. Skin that seems stretched and yet wrinkled in a grotesque Freddy Krueger-like homage, shiny in places and dull in others, mottled like a fruit or vegetable gone bad. Even the small details do their part to make you horrifying: the way the left side of your mouth sagged slightly when you smiled and your left brow, mostly devoid of eyebrow hair, seemed permanently stuck in a sad, hangdog kind of position. The burns extended down the left side of your neck and shoulder, partway down your arm, but you knew your face was the real star of the show, especially since the other side was smooth, unblemished, and could almost pass as pretty if the other side was in any way symmetrical.

Daryl doesn’t flinch at your face, doesn’t as much as _blink_. He simply takes a quick look at your face, your _whole_ face, eyes even taking in your neck and the small bit of shoulder that was exposed while the rest was hidden by your jacket. Then he flicks his eyes to meet yours.

“How’d it happen?” he asks, motioning with his hand, lowering his crossbow.

People never asked. You just heard the stories they made up afterwards, after looking at the horror show.  It was obvious you had been burned, but people never asked how, only made assumptions behind your back. It was almost refreshing to be asked so bluntly.

“Accident when I was a kid. Dipshit kid and modified super soaker equaling a colossal fuckup. I got caught in the line of fire.” You tell him, managing a small grin at your pun.

You weren’t sure if he believed you, and you’re prepared to defend your story, but he nods.

“Skin grafts must have been a bitch.” He remarks, in a way that sounds less like the pity you’re used to and more like a joke between friends.

“I was knocked out of most of that.” You said. “Some surgeries later on, though.”

And that had been the end of discussion on your face. Daryl asks a few questions about your situation, and more-or-less drags you to his group when you admit that you’re alone. That had been a brief source of tension, and when Rick, the leader, questions you on your skills, you admit all you have was a Bowie knife, your small backpack, a book on wilderness survival, and luck.

“I was supposed to be a classics professor before shit went down.” You admit. “My knowledge of Latin and Greek mean fuck-all now.” You smile at your overdramatic lament, but no one grins back, except maybe Daryl, who you could see managed a small smile that reeked of sarcasm.

“Why’d your group abandon you?” Rick asks you, and you could see he was keeping his hand ready to reach for his gun. You weren’t sure you blamed him, being abandoned by your group looked suspicious as fuck. At least you had the length of time on your side to prove you hadn’t been bitten.

“I got stomach flu, or food poisoning. Fuck if I know. I just know running a fever and shitting and puking yourself dehydrated makes you low man on the totem pole.” You told him. “It was months ago. I wasn’t bit, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Rick nods, but his hand doesn’t move, still ready to shoot you. It gives you a small measure of respect for him.

“How’d you make it?” he asked.

“Lucky rain storm and one of those idiots left good stuff behind, including this.” And you gestured to the knife in your belt, taking it out and handing it to Rick when he made a motion that he wanted to examine it. “Once I got hydrated, I managed to kill a squirrel. Best meal of my life, considering.” You told him. “Look, I know I’m probably not as skilled as the rest of you, but I’m willing to learn. I’ve managed to learn what’s edible that’s growing wild around here, not that that matters much now in the wint-“

“Alright.” Rick interrupts you. Then he turns to Daryl. “Daryl?”

“Hmm?” Daryl says, stepping forward and looking between you and Rick.

“You brought her here, you’re responsible for her. Make sure she learns what to expect.” And then Rick turns to you, handing your knife back. “We expect you to help, earn your keep. Understand?”

“ _Audivit, intellecta, agnoscitur_.” The group looks at you dumbly. “Heard, understood, acknowledged.”

Rick manages a smile. “You going to keep being a smart ass?”

“Only thing I know how to be, sorry.” You say, and Rick actually laughs at that.

That night at the fire, you hang back a bit. You understand the necessity of warmth, but the size of the fire made you afraid. It was almost funny, the way the undead simply annoyed you now but the sight of a fire filled you with dread.

“You okay?” Daryl asks. He had distanced himself from the others to join you and speak to you properly. You look up at him, the way the fire makes him glow and played with the shadows to make him seem more immense and larger than he was. By daylight he had been attractive in a dirty sort of way, but the fire made him almost mythical and divine, like the spirits of justice and strength given form. _Invictus Jupiter_ , you thought, lowering your eyes to the flames.

In retrospect, you knew the second you started thinking of him in the mythological knowledge of your life before, you were as good as gone. After all, hadn’t you decided to turn to your books, to the roots of language once you understood that no one would want you? If you couldn’t be attractive, be desired, than you could be smart. And any man who could inspire you to think like that without even trying, well…

“Yeah.” You motion to the fire. “We don’t play well, in case you noticed.”

Daryl gave a soft noise, you couldn’t be sure if it was a scoff or a sigh or even an aborted chuckle, but then he looked between the fire and you.

“You afraid?” he asks.

“Not exactly. I have a… let’s say, healthy respect for the more destructive properties.”

Daryl gave another noise; one that you’d learn later was of approval and understanding.

“So you were a teacher before all this?” he asks you. You weren’t sure if he was judging you for that or not.

“No, not yet. I had finished my degree and was about to do a postdoc fellowship that was supposedly leading to a professorship.”

Daryl had no idea what any of that meant, but he definitely understood the way you spoke about it, like it wasn’t going to happen even before the world went to shit. “Supposed to?”

You look at him with a smile, and though you didn’t know it, that was the moment Daryl starts really seeing you for the first time. Your smile didn’t look “right” because of your burns, but the way your eyes light up with amusement and the way you seemed so genuinely happy telling him your little story had stirred something in him.

“I like what I learned, and I like teaching people about it, but… I’m not cut out for the ivory tower, y’know? People patting themselves on the back because they think they’re smarter.” Your smile fades and you look at the fire. “Doesn’t do much good out here.”

“You’ll be fine.” Daryl assures you. “I mean, I’ll help you. Be much easier than learnin’ Greek or whatever, right?”

You’re tempted to make a joke that you know will fly over his head, but you smiled back at him and nodded.

* * *

Daryl was quick to introduce you to others in the group and help you learn how to contribute. The fire that burned you thankfully hadn't damaged your sight or motor skills, so using a gun presented no problem in the conceptual aspect. In practice, you were quite a ways rustier than many of the others in the group, and more than once you fail to account for recoil and end up almost smacking yourself in the face with a gun. You were sure the group found it mildly entertaining.

When it came to learning to properly use your knife, however, you were a quick study. Whether in combat skill or more practical and mundane matters, you became confident in wielding your knife. Daryl taught you how to gut and skin the animals he caught, and no matter how often it happened, you still blushed every time he took your hands to guide them in their work.

“Perfect,” you hear Daryl murmur in your ear, sending tingles up the back of your spine. “Maybe we can use this skin for gloves or somethin'.”

In addition to dirt and sweat and traces of animal blood, Daryl smells of pine and wood smoke and the sun-heated earth when he’s close to you like this. It unnerves you, just a little. People never got close to you, before.

“Maybe if we catch something bigger, we can make a coat or a blanket.” You tell him. Daryl makes a noise of agreement, and after a moment, moves away from you to work on another animal skin.

This is your new normal, for the most part; you help Daryl in between learning from the others. The wilderness survival book from your pack makes the rounds around the group, and it makes the long winter a little easier. At night, around the fire pit, while Rick and Hershel and the others take turns reading from the book and discussing its contents and how to use that knowledge, you and Daryl are often off to the side of the fire. Daryl doesn’t speak much, preferring to work on more bolts for his crossbow, but you talk a lot, about mythology you learned for your degree and how Latin and ancient Greek can be confusing languages, and how that has lead to different translations of work such as the bible. Daryl occasionally comments on this to express his distaste for idiot people, but more often he’s silent, working on his bolts and drinking up your waterfall of words. He doesn’t tell you, but he finds it nice, the way you talk to him like an equal and don’t automatically assume he’s too stupid to understand just because he has lead a radically different life than you. He also doesn’t say that he enjoys the way your eyes light up when you talk about things like the differences between the Greek and Roman gods and when you tell the myth about the March of the Ten Thousand. The spark in your eyes, the animation of your hands, the way you sometimes trip over or slur together your words… It’s all a little secret he alone enjoys.

At least, Daryl feels that he alone appreciates its worth. He knows the others have noticed the two of you, and that Carol sometimes teases him about the two of you always being off alone together. But Daryl also realizes you don’t seem to be acting any kind of different way at all. He wonders if you notice things about him the way he does about you, or if you place any meaning behind the fact you spend most of your free time with him. At times he brushes it off; he had basically saved your life, perhaps it was gratitude on your part. Sometimes, though… Sometimes he wonders. About himself, and about you. He usually shakes it off, tells himself to focus on surviving the winter, getting everyone else through. At other times, he finds himself admitting that maybe he feels more than he’s willing to admit.

The two of you can often be found working side-by-side in the day time, and it’s not surprising that Daryl often takes you with him to check his traps. One day, along a meandering dirt path surrounded by mossy rocks and covered in a mess of crisscrossing tree roots, you and Daryl are walking along to check a set of Daryl’s traps when Daryl hears the _crunch_ of a heavy foot stepping on leaves, and he’s instantly alert. He reaches out, grabbing your shoulder and pulling you behind him.

“Stay behind me.” He orders you, listening intently for what he _knows_ to be a walker. He’s without his crossbow, having anticipated an uncomplicated and fast excursion with you, but he has other weapons on him, a knife and a gun. He knows you have that Bowie knife of yours but his mind is elsewhere, full of a primal, basic urge to protect you, no matter what.

Daryl’s so busy looking off in the direction the sound came from he doesn’t notice the other walker silently moving in the other direction. You do, however, and before Daryl can react, you slip from behind him, knife unsheathed, attacking the noiseless walker. You get a good slice to the neck of it before your foots gets caught in one of the tree roots on the path, sending you and the walker tumbling. Daryl tries to call for you but is cut off when the walker he was listening for moves into view and attacks him, and he has to fight the thing off.

It’s a long tussle, the walker gives as good as it gets and Daryl finally has to shoot the thing to fight it off. But when he finally kills the undead son of a bitch, he doesn’t revel in his victory, instead rising and looking frantically in the direction he saw you tumble with the other walker. You’re just starting to stand when his eyes find you, the walker you were fighting a torn-up mess, its head severed and at least one of its arm thrown clear.

Daryl is filled with anger as he races to you, grabbing you by the arm and hoisting you upward.

“You could have been hurt!” He yells, and you narrow your eyes at him, removing your arm from his grasp.

“Fuck you, Daryl, I had it.” You mutter, turning to leave, though you’re not sure where you’re headed, whether it’s back to the others or to continue on to check the traps. Daryl grabs your wrist and spins you back to face him.

“I told you to stay behind me, damn it! What the hell-“

“I was thinking I could be fucking useful for once!” you snap at him.

Daryl’s eyes narrow as he lets go of you.

“You are useful.” He murmurs. His eyes look away from you, knowing that the idea of being useful is a sore spot for you, that you still feel miles away from competent because you lag behind the others in firearm proficiency and don’t feel like you mesh well with anyone besides Daryl. You’ve said as much to him sometimes, when you think his mind is elsewhere and he only seems like he’s half-listening to you.

“Bullshit. What good am I? And don’t say I’m smart, because knowing fucking Latin and… and ancient Greek and all that garbage means fuck all now, okay?” You tell him, pulling the wild mess of your hair away from your face. It had gotten tangled and messy in the tussle with the walker, and you were sure you looked even more of a mess than you usually did, which frustrated you even more.

Daryl sighs and looks away.

“So you want to throw everything away? Throw yourself away?” he asks. He’s not yelling at you anymore, and somehow that feels even worse than if he were.

“Don’t, Daryl. I know I’m not that impor-“

“The hell you’re not!” he yells at you, snapping his head up to look at you, and you take a step back, startled at his outburst.

The two of you are silent for a long moment, just staring at each other. Daryl doesn’t know how to articulate what he’s feeling inside, that primal urge to protect and that fuzziness he feels about you colliding and melding into something altogether unknown to him.

“If the world hadn’t gone to hell, would you have even given me a second look?” you ask, motioning to the left side of your face. “Except maybe to gawk?”

“Darlin’-“

“I’m _not_ stupid, Daryl! When you got half a face that looks like something between a melted candle and burnt hamburger, you know what you’re working with.”

Daryl sighs. So you knew how he felt, and maybe you felt the same for him. He was pretty sure you did, anyway; between that question being as good as a confession and the fact you had fought off a walker for him just as he had fought one for you, it was pretty hard to deny.

“Darlin’, you wouldn’t have even noticed me from that ivory tower of yours, so let’s call it even.” He tells you, his anger softening as he reaches forward to take your hand. “And for the record, you’re not hideous.”

“I’m a step above these walkers.” You mutter, your own anger fading into awkwardness and mortification. You’re praying for the earth to swallow you whole.

Daryl manages a small smile, reaching forward with his other hand to gently touch the damaged side of your face. As he moves to grasp your hand in both of his, he reaches over and presses a small kiss on your fire-scarred cheek before moving to kiss your lips.

“Lucky for you, I’m no prize myself,” he tells you as you part.

You manage a small laugh through tears that have trailed down your face out of nowhere.

“Daryl!” you say as he pulls you even closer to him.

He smiles at you for a moment before his face turning serious again.

“But I do mean it, darlin’. You’re not useless. And you do something that stupid again, we’re gonna have us some words about just how important you are. Understand?” he asks you.

You nod as he pulls you in for another kiss, feeling lighter than you have in ages.


End file.
